Jumper. Steven Gould

Stanville Public Library is just off the downtown district, a three-block-by-two-block area of public buildings, restaurants, and dying stores. The Wal-Mart at the edge of town and the big mall twenty miles away in Waverly were taking the downtown business.

      I walked along Main Street and thought about how different this stupid little town was from New York City.

      The boarded-up front of the Royale movie theater had graffiti on the plywood, but the message was “Stallions Rule!” In New York the graffiti on theaters was obscene or angry, not high school athletic bragging. On the other hand, there were over fifty movie theaters in the mid town section of Manhattan and that didn’t count the porno houses. Here in Stanville the only theater was closed, done in by the video business. If people wanted a real movie theater, they had to drive to the sixplex in Waverly.

      It was pointless to compare restaurants, but the variety and range of them hit home when I came to the Dairy Queen. It was brick with high glass windows and bright fluorescent lighting. It had all the atmosphere and charm of a doctor’s examining room. I thought of seven spots in Greenwich Village that would serve me anything from gourmet ice cream to “tofutti” to frozen yogurt to Bavarian cream pie. I could be at any of them in the blink of an eye.

      “I’d like a small dip cone, please.”

      I didn’t know the elderly woman behind the counter, but Robert Werner, who used to be in biology class with me, was flipping burgers. He looked up from the grill, saw me, and frowned, as if I was familiar but he couldn’t place me. It had been over a year, but it hurt that he didn’t recognize me.

      “That will be seventy-three cents.”

      I paid. In the Village it would have been considerably more. As I walked back to one of the plastic laminated booths I saw myself in the mirror that ran along the back wall. No wonder Robert couldn’t place me.

      I was wearing slacks from Bergdorf’s, a shirt I’d gotten from some snotty clerk on Madison Avenue, and shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue. My hair was cut neatly, slightly punkoid, far different from the untrimmed mess I’d worn a year before. Then I would have been wearing worn, ill-fitting jeans, shirts with clashing patterns, and three-year-old tennis shoes. There would have been holes in the socks.

      I stared for a moment, a ghostly overlay of that earlier, awkward me causing me to shudder. I sat down, facing away from the mirror, and ate my ice cream.

      Robert came out from the kitchen to bus a table near me. He looked at me again, still puzzled.

      What the hell.

      “How’s it going, Robert?”

      He smiled and shrugged. “Okay. How about you? Long time no see.”

      He still didn’t place me.

      I laughed. “You might say that. Not for over a year.”

      “That would have been at …?” He paused, as if remembering, inviting me to fill in the blank.

      I grinned, “You’re going to have to remember all on your own. I won’t help you.”

      He glared then. “Okay. Dammit. I know you, but where from? Give me a break!”

      I shook my head and nibbled on my cone.

      He turned to finish bussing the table, then straightened up suddenly. “Davy? Christ, Davy Rice!”

      “Bingo.”

      “I thought you did a milk carton.”

      I grimaced. “Poetically put.”

      “Did you go back home?”

      “No!” I blinked, surprised at the force in my voice. More softly I said, “No, I didn’t. I’m just seeing the old hometown.”

      “Oh.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Well, you look really good. Really different.”

      “I’m doing all right. I …” I shrugged.

      “Where are you living now?”

      I started to lie, to tell him something misleading, but it seemed petty. “I’d rather not say.”

      He frowned. “Oh. Is your dad still putting those posters up?”

      “Christ, I hope not.”

      He started wiping the table. “You going to be here on Saturday? There’s a party at Sue Kimmel’s.”

      I felt my face turning red. “I was never in with those guys. Half of them are college kids. They wouldn’t want me there.”

      He shrugged. “I don’t know. Hell, maybe they think too much about clothes and things. They only invited me because my sister’s close to Sue. You look more like you’d fit in now than I do. If you want to go with me, I’ll vouch for you.”

      Christ, I must’ve changed a lot.

      “Don’t you have a date?”

      “Nah. Nothing definite. Trish McMillan will be there and we sort of have this thing, but it’s not a date.”

      “It’s nice of you, Robert. You don’t really owe me anything like that.”

      He blinked. “Well … it’s not like I hang out with a high-class group. Maybe you’ll add something to my image.”

      “Well … I’d like to. You working here all week?”

      “Yeah, even Saturday until six. That old college-fund grind.”

      “When do you think you’ll be ready to go?”

      “Eight, maybe.”

      “You driving?”

      He pointed out into the parking lot. “Yeah, that old clunker’s mine.”

      I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to go to his house. I didn’t know what his parents would say to me or about me to Dad. The thought of going to that party, though … that really tempted me. “Could you pick me up here?”

      “Sure. Eight sharp, Saturday night.”

      I spent some time that evening talking to Millie on the phone. It was frustrating because I kept having to put quarters in the pay phone.

      “So, how’s school so far?”

      “Okay. Haven’t really had to struggle yet. It’s just the first month.”

      A recorded message asked me to add more money. I shoved several quarters in. Millie laughed.

      “You really need to get a phone.”

      “I’m working on it. Getting a phone in New York … I’ll call you with the number when I get it.”

      “Okay.”

      I was standing at the phones in the back lobby of the Grand Hyatt by Grand Central, a small mountain of quarters on the ledge in front of me. People swept past, going to the bathrooms. Occasionally a Hyatt security man in a suit would roust nonguests out of the bathroom. They were usually black, poorly dressed, and carrying plastic bags filled with miscellaneous belongings.

      For some reason it bothered me that the security guard was black, too.

      “What did you say?”

      Millie was indignant. “I said there’s a party I’ve been invited to in two weeks. I don’t want to go because Mark will be there.”

      “Mark’s your old boyfriend?”

      “Yeah. Only he thinks I’m still involved with him.”

      “How’s that? I thought you didn’t return his calls or let him in your apartment.”

      “I don’t. He’s amazing. Oblivious. And the sonofabitch keeps it up even though I know he’s dating someone else.”

      “Hmmm.